Manitoba Pork Council is counting on stepped up trade advocacy initiatives to help head off the next US trade action against Canadian swine.

This past spring a ruling by the US International Trade Commission ended antidumping duties imposed on imported live Canadian pigs the previous fall.

The concern now is that a Canadian trade action could result in an import duty on US corn which could ultimately trigger another US action against Canadian swine.

Manitoba Pork Council Chair Karl Kynoch says, reading between the lines, we can rest assured the American will launch another trade action when the timing is right.

Clip-Karl Kynoch-Manitoba Pork Council

Some of the things that we're doing right now in preparation is we're trying to get to the grassroots producers in the US and Manitoba Pork Council is actually, in January and February, going to be spending two weeks in the US.

What we're doing is going to their annual meetings and their trade shows.

We've developed a booth that's going to be very vigilant.

We're going to have it manned by some of the members from Pork Council.

My general manager and myself, we did a tour down south in April and after that we heard a lot of feedback, a lot of compliments on the trip.

It was very positive.

It was made clear to us that even right at their boards they didn't have 100 percent support.

There's producers sitting on those boards down there that rely on the supply of live hogs out of Canada to make their business viable.

I would say, yes, we've had very positive feedback so far and it's been highly recommended that we keep this up.

We're going to keep this up at least twice a year and we're also going to try to have the American producers back into Canada and show them our industry and tour them around here.

Manitoba Pork Council, in conjunction with the Canadian Pork Council, is opposing any import duties on US corn.

Kynoch suggests such a duty would drive up feed costs in Canada making it more difficult for swine producers to recover their cost of production and leaving Canadian swine vulnerable to US antidumping duties.